7 months on, Slowly but Surely

Today, 07.02.2010, is exactly 7 months since I started switching on the sound to my swiftlet sanctuary. When I entered the sanctuary this morning, to my surprise there is a nest base at the corner of the nesting planks on the 3rd. Floor. In my earlier post, I had reported that I discovered a nest base but that was a false alarm as the base did not show any progress but this time it is for real. The past 3 months had been the month of slow growth everywhere where very few swiftlets were seen in the sky and even in the birdhouses. I just visited a birdhouse in Hulu Besut and the owners had been complaining about the slow progress for the past months but to their surprise when they visited the birdhouse yesterday after 2 weeks being away, there were 5 new nest bases. This shows that the breeding season is on and more nests and babies are on the way. In my sanctuary, I discovered a lot of bird shits on the 2nd and 3rd Floor, mostly below the tweeters, but so far only 1 nest base above the bird shit. I am positive that more nests will come with the breeding season already started. Most of the bird shits are on the 3rd Floor which is the brightest of the the 3 Floors. This would just dispel the myth that swiftlets like to stay in dark places.

1st. nest base at corner and besides tweeter

Bird shits above tweeter

Bird shits above tweeter

Bird shits above tweeter

Bird shits above tweeter

Bird shits above tweeter

Sanctuary fully completed and in full swing

At last, I have completed all the works for the sanctuary and the last thing that I did was to clear the rubbish and leftovers in front of my sanctuary. I have also got back the fountain on the roof in front of the entrance hole in working order. What I need to do now is to observe the swiftlets flying above my sanctuary, watching their behavior, so that I can do the adjustments, if necessary, to attract them into my sanctuary. I hope I don't have to carry out anymore repairs and if there were any if would only be minor which I can do on my own. I have sorted out the construction costs with my partner and what I can tell my readers is that it cost about RM32 per sq ft, all-in, to DIY this sanctuary.

View of Sanctuary from main road

Fountain and Pool in front of Entrance Hole

Roof repaired

My workers had finished installing the metaldeck roof over the flat roof on both sides of my sanctuary leaving only the middle portion with pools. The leaks have all gone and I feel a great relief. However, the roof over the roving room which I had painted the top with 2 coats of elastomeric liquid waterproof membrane shows a slight leak when it rained this afternoon and it seems to come from a hairline crack on the side of the roof which was not painted. I will have to purchase a 5 litre can tomorrow and have that portion painted. With that touch-up, I hope have resolved the leakage problem. When I was at the sanctuary today, I was surprised at the number of swiftlets circling the sanctuary. They were still circling the sanctuary at 1.00 pm. Perhaps they liked the blue-coloured metaldeck roof which I had just installed.

View of entrance after renovation

View of the entrance from the back

View of metaldeck roof on the right side of entrance

Another view of the metaldeck roof from the back

It has been 3 weeks now

I had switched on the bird sound for 3 weeks now. Progress made has been very encouraging. Swiftlets have been circling my sanctuary even during odd hours like 10.00 a.m and 11.00 a.m. In the late afternoon, most of swiftlets were seen circling my 4 ways tweeter and hexagonal tweeter . So far, I have found 3 bird shit spots on the 3rd. Floor . One of the spots is directly above the tweeter. One problem that has been nagging me is the leakage on the roof and I had decided once for all to make do without 6 0f the pools on the roof and cover them up with metal deck. I will still be retaining 2 of the 8 pools I had on the roof top.

Swiftlet Sanctuary About Ready To Receive Swiftlets

There have been little report on the progress of my swiftlet sanctuary lately. Today, I would like to inform that my sanctuary is almost ready. I am calling my birdhouse a sanctuary because this is what the place really is that, a shelter conducive for swiftlets to stay. The sound system has been installed and the electricity has been connected. The plumbing works with fountains and internal drainage is almost completed with only minor pipe works still to be carried out. Though there is a stream flowing through, I will not be using the stream water. I have engaged a contractor to bore into the ground and I will be using underground water for my ponds and fountains as well as for daily use. My workers is doing the cleaning up, cleaning the floors and scrapping left over concrete from the affected nesting planks. My workers will also be patching the holes left by the plumbing works and will waterproofed them as well as waterproofing part of the roof slab which have hairline cracks. All these works will take another few days to complete and hopefully I will be able to commission my sanctuary by 1st july 2009. I have picked a few aromas to apply prior to commissioning the sanctuary. I will by applying different aromas to different parts of the sanctuary, one into the plastic containers on the floor, one into the water fountain on the 1st floor, one to the walls and a portion of the nesting planks. Lets see which part will have the nest first.

On top of the Hollow

1st., 2nd. and 3rd. floor topped up with a layer of wire mesh
and 1 1/2 inch cement mortar to strengthen the floor slab

Piping works to pool

4-way tweeter and hexagonal tweeter on top of pole

Another view of 4-way tweeter and hexagonal tweeter
The Hollow mouth is open wide to welcome the swiftlets.
Notice the tweeters at the corner and edge